Students entering Parsons share a common first-year experience. The same course sequence constitutes the first year of every BFA and BBA program, providing a foundational experience that familiarizes students with the tools, methods, and skills of art and design. First-year courses prepare students for life as skilled and socially aware artists and designers. Classes focusing on broadly relevant design concepts, tools, and methods—including studios exploring 2D and 3D processes, drawing, and digital design as well as liberal arts seminars—bring together students who are passionate about all kinds of art and design and who will one day forge new paths in an array of disciplines.
Drawing on the breadth and depth of expertise in design theory and practice at Parsons, this new Master of Arts program offers students the opportunity to explore design as both a field of scholarly research and an agent of social change.
Launched in fall 2010, this Master of Arts program allows students to engage in the evolving field of fashion studies. Using an interdisciplinary approach, students explore fashion as object, image, text, practice, theory, and concept and develop a critical understanding of fashion and its complex global intersections with identities, histories, and cultures in the contemporary world.
Offered jointly with the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, the History of Design and Curatorial Studies program leads to a Master of Arts degree. Graduates go on to careers as historians, curators, and scholars in museums, universities, historic houses, auction houses, and galleries.
